Parton Distributions at Hadronization from Bulk Dense Matter Produced at RHIC
J. H. Chen, F. Jin, D. Gangadharan, X. Z. Cai, H. Z. Huang, Y. G. Ma
备注：
5 pages, 3 figures, two more paragraph added to address the referee's comment, figure updated to include the KET scale. Accepted version to appear in Phys. Rev. C
We present an analysis of $Ω$, $Ξ$, $Λ$ and $ϕ$ spectra from Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV in terms of distributions of effective constituent quarks at hadronization. Consistency in quark ratios derived from various hadron spectra provides clear evidence for hadron formation dynamics as suggested by quark coalescence or recombination models. We argue that the constituent quark distribution reflects properties of the effective partonic degrees of freedom at hadronization. Experimental data indicate that strange quarks have a transverse momentum distribution flatter than that of up/down quarks consistent with hydrodynamic expansion in partonic phase prior to hadronization. After the AMPT model is tuned to reproduce the strange and up/down quark distributions, the model can describe the measured spectra of hyperons and $ϕ$ mesons very well where hadrons are formed through dynamical coalescence.
We study the mechanism and probability of in-medium hadronization in the deconfined medium produced in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC. We show the likelihood of color-neutral objects to be formed inside the partonic fireball and the probability of these states to escape the medium with reduced interaction strength and energy loss. We will suggest specific measurements that are sensitive to the early degrees of freedom and show predictions for these measurements at RHIC and the LHC
We study the production of charmonia and charmed hadrons for nucleus-nucleus collisions at SPS, RHIC, and LHC energies within the framework of the statistical hadronization model. Results from this model are compared to the observed centrality dependence of J/psi production at SPS energy. We further provide predictions for the centrality dependence of the production of open and hidden charm mesons at RHIC and LHC.
A hydrodynamic model coupled to the statistical hadronization code Therminator is used to study a set of observables in the soft sector at RHIC. A satisfactory description of the pT-spectra and elliptic flow is obtained, similarly to other hydrodynamic models. With the Gaussian initial conditions the transverse femtoscopic radii are also reproduced, providing a possible solution of the RHIC HBT puzzle.
We discuss experimental features of identified particle production from nucleus-nucleus collisions. These features reflect hadronization from a deconfined partonic matter whose particle formation scheme is distinctly different from fragmentation phenomenology in elementary collisions. Multi-parton dynamics, such as quark coalescences or recombinations, appear to be essential to explain the experimental measurements at the intermediate transverse momentum of 2--5 GeV/c. Constituent quarks seem to be the dominant degrees of freedom at hadronization. Heavy quark production should help quantify de…
We study the production of charmonia and charmed hadrons in nucleus-nucleus collisions at SPS, RHIC, and LHC energies within the framework of the statistical hadronization model. Results from this model are compared to the measured yields and centrality dependence of J/psi production at SPS and RHIC energies. We explore and contrast the centrality dependence of the production of mesons with open and hidden charm at SPS, RHIC, and LHC. The sensitivity of the results to various input parameters is analyzed in detail for RHIC energy.
Azimuthally-sensitive femtoscopy for heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC is explored within the approach consisting of the hydrodynamics of perfect fluid followed by statistical hadronization. It is found that for the RHIC initial conditions the very same framework that reproduces the standard soft observables (including the transverse-momentum spectra, the elliptic flow, and the azimuthally-averaged HBT radii) leads to a proper description of the azimuthally-sensitive femtoscopic observables - we find that the azimuthal variation of the side and out HBT radii is very well reproduced for all …
The expansion of strongly interacting matter formed in high-energy nuclear collisions drives the system through the region of phase coexistence. The present study examines the associated spinodal instability and finds that the degree of amplification may be sufficient to raise the prospect of using the spinodal pattern formation as a diagnostic tool for probing the hadronization phase transition.
We have studied the hadronization of jet parton showers based on the quark recombination model. This is achieved by letting gluons at the end of the perturbative shower evolution undergo a non-perturbative splitting into quark and antiquark pairs, then applying a Monte-Carlo version of instantaneous quark recombination, and finally subjecting remnant quarks (those which have not found a recombination partner) to Lund string fragmentation. When applied to parton showers from the PYTHIA Monte Carlo generator, the final hadron spectra from our calculation compare quite well to PYTHIA jets that ha…
We address the principles governing QGP hadronization and particle production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We argue that chemical non-equilibrium is required and show that once this condition is assumed a very good description of hadron production in collider RHIC and at LHC heavy ion experiments follows. We present results of our analysis as a function of centrality. Comparing most extreme experimental conditions we show that only the reaction volume and degree of strangeness phase space saturation change. We determine the universal QGP fireball hadronization conditions.
The rapidity densities in Au-Au collisions at center-of-mass energies 200 and 130 A GeV measured at Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider by STAR and PHENIX collaborations are analyzed within the statistical hadronization model at chemical freeze-out. We find that the model can describe the experimental rapidity densities well. The corresponding chemical freeze-out parameters are determined and they are seen to be in agreement with what we expect from our previous analyzes at lower beam energies at AGS and SPS.
Parton energy loss in Au+Au collisions at RHIC energies is studied by numerically solving the relativistic Boltzmann equation for the partons including $2 \leftrightarrow 2$ and $2 \to 2 + final state radiation$ collision processes. Final particle spectra are obtained using two hadronization models; the Lund string fragmentation and independent fragmentation models. Recent, preliminary $π^0$ transverse momentum distributions from central Au+Au collisions at RHIC are reproduced using gluon-gluon scattering cross sections of 5-12 mb, depending upon the hadronization model. Comparisons with the H…
The parton recombination model has turned out to be a valuable tool to describe hadronization in high energy heavy ion collisions. I review the model and revisit recent progress in our understanding of hadron correlations. I also discuss higher Fock states in the hadrons, possible violations of the elliptic flow scaling and recombination effects in more dilute systems.
The hadronization of an expanding partonic fireball is studied within the Parton-Hadron-Strings Dynamics (PHSD) approach which is based on a dynamical quasiparticle model (DQPM) matched to reproduce lattice QCD results in thermodynamic equilibrium. Apart from strong parton interactions the expansion and development of collective flow is found to be driven by strong gradients in the parton mean-fields. An analysis of the elliptic flow $v_2$ demonstrates a linear correlation with the spatial eccentricity $ε$ as in case of ideal hydrodynamics. The hadronization occurs by quark-antiquark fusion or…
Coalescence of minijet partons with the partons from the quark-gluon plasma formed in relativistic heavy ion collisions is suggested as the mechanism for production of hadrons with intermediate transverse momentum. The resulting enhanced antiproton and pion yields at intermediate transverse momentum gives a plausible explanation for the observed large antiproton to pion ratio. With further increasing momentum, the ratio is predicted to decrease and approach the small value given by independent fragmentations of minijet partons after their energy loss in the quark-gluon plasma.
Using a covariant coalescence model, we study hadron production in relativistic heavy ion collisions from both soft partons in the quark-gluon plasma and hard partons in minijets. Including transverse flow of soft partons and independent fragmentation of minijet partons, the model is able to describe available experimental data on pion, kaon, and antiproton spectra. The resulting antiproton to pion ratio is seen to increase at low transverse momenta and reaches a value of about one at intermediate transverse momenta, as observed in experimental data at RHIC. A similar dependence of the antikao…
The integrated HydroKinetic Model (iHKM) is applied to analyse the results of direct photon spectra as well as elliptic and triangular flow measurements in 200A GeV Au+Au collisions at RHIC for different centrality bins. Experiments detect the strong centrality dependence of photon elliptic and triangular flow as increasing $v_n(p_T)$-coefficients towards peripheral collisions. The photon production in the model is accumulated from the different sources along with the process of relativistic heavy ion collision developing. Those include the primary hard photons from the parton collisions at th…
The hadronization of an expanding partonic fireball is studied within the Parton-Hadron-Strings Dynamics (PHSD) approach which is based on a dynamical quasiparticle model (DQPM) matched to reproduce lattice QCD results in thermodynamic equilibrium. Apart from strong parton interactions the expansion and development of collective flow is driven by strong gradients in the parton mean-fields. An analysis of the elliptic flow $v_2$ demonstrates a linear correlation with the spatial eccentricity $ε$ as in case of ideal hydrodynamics. The hadronization occurs by quark-antiquark fusion or 3 quark/3 a…
Assuming the Statistical Hadronization Model and charm flavour conservation, one can quantify the deviation of charm and anti-charm quarks from chemical equilibrium both in the hadronic phase and in the quark-gluon plasma. By linking the hadronic fireball volume and the corresponding plasma source volume via entropy conservation as proposed by Grandchamp et al., a direct comparison between the $J/ψ$ yields in both pictures can be used to obtain limits for the charm quark mass in the medium.
$SU(N_c)$ colour-singlet restriction, along with flavour and spin symmetry, on thermal partonic ensemble is shown to recombine the partons with internal colour structure into colour-singlet multi-quark clusters which can be identified with various hadronic modes at a given temperature. This provides a possible basis for recombination model for hadronization of quark-gluon plasma. This also leads to a natural explanation for the ratio of (anti)protons to pions and the quark number scaling of the elliptic flow coefficient in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.
We discuss Hybrid Hadronization, a hadronization model which interpolates between string fragmentation in dilute parton systems and quark recombination in dense parton systems. We lay out the basic principles, discuss some details of the implementation, and show some prelimiary results. Hybrid Hadronization is realized as a software package which works with PYTHIA 8 and will be released publicly in the near future.
We present additions to the MARTINI event generator for examining heavy quarks and quarkonia in heavy-ion collisions. All stages of a heavy-ion collision affect the observables associated with heavy quarks: the initial phase space of the heavy quarks are sampled with PYTHIA8.1, the heavy quarks are evolved using Langevin dynamics and a 3+1-dimensional hydrodynamical description of the heavy-ion collision, and are fragmented and hadronized using a modified version of the color evaporation model that takes into account non-trivial evolution in position space, as well as the possibility of recomb…
"Hybrid Hadronization" is a new Monte Carlo package to hadronize systems of partons. It smoothly combines quark recombination applicable when distances between partons in phase space are small, and string fragmentation appropriate for dilute parton systems, following the picture outlined by Han et al. [PRC 93, 045207 (2016)]. Hybrid Hadronization integrates with PYTHIA 8 and can be applied to a variety of systems from $e^++e^-$ to $A+A$ collisions. It takes systems of partons and their color flow information, for example from a Monte Carlo parton shower generator, as input. In addition, if for…
In the string melting version of a multiphase transport model, the hadronization algorithm has been improved by favoring parton combinations close in not only coordinate space but also momentum space. Formation probabilities of mesons, baryons, and antibaryons during hadronization are determined by their corresponding Wigner functions for the valence parton combinations with no free parameters, and the net baryon, electric, and strangeness charges are conserved during quark coalescence. Effects of the hadronization on anisotropic flows, collision energy dependence of the proton directed flow, …
We discuss the bulk properties of QGP produced at RHIC obtained at time of hadronization. We argue that hadronization of quark--gluon plasma occurs at a critical pressure of 82 MeV/fm3, obtained for SPS energy range.
We show that all central rapidity hadron yields measured in Pb--Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV are well described by the chemical non-equilibrium statistical hadronization model (SHM), where the chemically equilibrated QGP source breaks up directly into hadrons. SHM parameters are obtained as a function of centrality of colliding ions, and we compare CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) with Brookhaven National Laboratory Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) results. We predict yields of unobserved hadrons and address anti-matter production. The physical properties of the quark--gluon…
We argue that the emission of hadrons with transverse momentum up to about 5 GeV/c in central relativistic heavy ion collisions is dominated by recombination, rather than fragmentation of partons. This mechanism provides a natural explanation for the observed constant baryon-to-meson ratio of about one and the apparent lack of a nuclear suppression of the baryon yield in this momentum range. Fragmentation becomes dominant at higher transverse momentum, but the transition point is delayed by the energy loss of fast partons in dense matter.
This thesis discusses the phenomenological parton recombination approach to describe hadronization in heavy ion collisions. The very good agreement to RHIC data for the flow coefficients v_2 and v_4 is shown and extrapolations are used to make predictions for the LHC.
Effects of partonic interactions in heavy ion collisions at RHIC are studied in a multiphase transport model (AMPT) that includes both initial partonic and final hadronic interactions.It is found that a large parton scattering cross section is needed to understand the measured elliptic flow of pions and two-pion correlation function.
We compare the distortion effects of three popular final-state hadronization schemes. We show how hadronization modifies the initial-state gluon correlations in high energy p+A collisions. The three models considered are (1) LPH: local parton-hadron duality, (2) CPR: collinear parton- hadron resonance independent fragmentation, and (3) LUND: color string hadronization. The strong initial-state azimuthal asymmetries are generated using the GLVB model for non-abelian gluon bremsstrahlung, assuming a saturation scale Qsat = 2 GeV. Long-range elliptic and triangular harmonics for the final hadron …
We analyze the contribution of pQCD based semi-hard parton (re)scattering to the reaction dynamics of relativistic heavy-ion collisions at SPS and RHIC. While such processes are able to account for the measured yield of high momentum direct photons at SPS energies, the conditions necessary for jet-quenching are not fulfilled. The situation changes dramatically at RHIC energies.
A new dynamical approach that combines covariant parton transport theory with hadronization channels via parton coalescence and fragmentation is applied to Au+Au at RHIC. Basic consequences of the simple coalescence formulas, such as elliptic flow scaling and enhanced proton/pion ratio, turn out to be rather sensitive to the spacetime aspects of coalescence dynamics.
New results on $ϕ$-meson production and elliptic flow $v_{2}$ measurements from RHIC 2004 run (Run-IV) have been reviewed. In addition, the di-hadron correlation function between the trigged $ϕ$ and $Ω$ and the associated soft particles was simulated. Knowledge about these results are discussed.
Medium-induced parton energy loss, resulting from gluon exchanges between the QCD matter and partonic projectiles, is expected to underly the strong suppression of jets and high-$p_T$ hadron spectra observed in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. Here, we present the first color-differential calculation of parton energy loss. We find that color exchange between medium and projectile enhances the invariant mass of energetic color singlet clusters in the parton shower by a parametrically large factor proportional to the square root of the projectile energy. This effect is seen in more than …
The effects of color screening on the hadronization of a parton plasma into a hadron gas are examined at the energies of the relativistic heavy ion collider. It is found to have the tendency to prevent hadronization and therefore delaying the conversion of the partons into a hadron gas. Because of the continual expansion, the resulting hadron gas number densities are lower when screening is included. This should reduce the hadronic noise to genuine signals of the quark-gluon plasma. In this sense, color screening is favorable and should be included in numerical models. In any case, we advocate…
An important ingredient for the non-equilibrium evolution of partons at RHIC and LHC is to have some physically reasonable initial conditions for the single particle phase space distribution functions for the partons. We consider several plausible parametrizations of initial conditions for the single particle distribution function f_i(x,p) and fix the parameters by matching \int f(x,p)p^μd σ_μto the invariant momentum space semi-hard parton distributions obtained using perturbative QCD (pQCD), as well as fitting low order moments of the distribution function. We consider parametrizations of f_…
We compute the mid-rapidity densities of pions, kaons, baryons and antibaryons in $Au$--$Au$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 130 GeV in the Dual Parton Model supplemented with final state interactions, and we present a comparison with available data.
This survey offers an introductory tutorial for students of any age of the currently thriving field of hadrochemistry. We discuss the different chemical potentials, how the hadronic phase space is described and how one evaluates the abundance of hadrons at time of hadronization. We show that a rather accurate description of experimental data arises and we present results of fits to hadron yields at SPS and RHIC. We show that introduction of chemical non-equilibrium originating in a sudden hadronization of a QGP is favored strongly at SPS and is presently also emerging at RHIC. The low chemical…
We explore the centrality dependence of properties of the dense hadronic matter created in \sqrt{s_{NN}}=200 GeV Au--Au collisions at RHIC. Using the statistical hadronization model we fit particle yields known for 11 centrality bins. We present the resulting model parameters, rapidity yields of physical quantities and the physical properties of bulk matter at hadronization as function of centrality. We discuss the production of strangeness and entropy.
We present new results on the statistical hadronization of heavy quarks at SPS, RHIC and LHC energies. Several new aspects are considered, among them a separation of the collision geometry into a ``core'' and a ``corona'' part and an estimate of the annihilation rate of charm quark in a hot plasma, together with a critical assessment of its influence on the results. For RHIC energies we investigate the centrality dependence of J/psi production focusing on the model results for different values of the charm production cross section, including its theoretical and experimental uncertainty. We als…
We introduce a Monte Carlo space-time model for high-energy collisions with nuclei, involving the dynamical interplay of perturbative QCD parton production and evolution, with non-perturbative parton-cluster formation and `afterburner' cascading of formed pre-hadronic clusters plus hadron excitations. This approach allows us to trace the space-time history of parton and hadron degrees of freedom of nuclear collisions on the microscopical level of parton and hadron cascades in both position and momentum space, from the instant of nuclear overlap to the final yield of particles. In applying this…
This dissertation examines the phenomenology of statistical hadronization at ultrarelativistic energies. We start with an overview of current experimental and theoretical issues in Relativistic heavy ion physics. We then introduce statistical hadronization, and show how it gives a description of particle abundances and spectra through covariance and entropy maximization. We argue that a distinction can be made between equilibrated staged freeze-out in which post-formation hadron interactions play an important role in determining final-state observables, and non-equilibrium sudden freeze-out wh…
There are several indications that an opaque partonic medium is created in energetic Au+Au collisions \sqrt{s} ~ 100 GeV/nucleon at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). At the extreme densities of ~ 10-100 times normal nuclear density reached even heavy-flavor hadrons are affected significantly. Heavy-quark observables are presented from the parton transport model MPC, focusing on the nuclear suppression pattern, azimuthal anisotropy ("elliptic flow"), and azimuthal correlations. Comparison with Au+Au data at top RHIC energy \sqrt{s} = 200 GeV indicates significant heavy quark rescatter…
We report recent results from a multiphase transport (AMPT) model on the azimuthal anisotropies of particle momentum distributions in heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. These include higher-order anisotropic flows and their scaling, the rapidity dependence of anisotropic flows, and the elliptic flow of charm quarks.
We consider the chemical freeze-out of $Ξ$, $\overlineΞ$ and $ϕ$ multistrange hadrons within a Statistical Hadronization Model inspired approach. We study particle yields across a wide range of reaction energy and centrality from NA49 at SPS and STAR at RHIC experiments. We constrain the physical conditions present in the fireball source of strange hadrons, and anticipate results expected at LHC.
The implications of parton rearrangement processes on the dynamics of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions have been investigated. A microscopic transport approach, namely the quark gluon string model (QGSM) which has been extended for a locally density-dependent partonic rearrangement and fusion procedure served as the tool for this investigations. The model emulates effectively the dynamics of a strongly coupled quark plasma and final hadronic interactions. Main QGSM results on anisotropic flow components v1 and v2 at top RHIC energy are compiled. Predictions for the pseudorapidity depend…
We consider a physical scenario for ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions where, at the early stage, only transverse degrees of freedom of partons are thermalized, while the longitudinal motion is described by free streaming. When the energy density of the partonic system drops to a certain critical value, the partons hadronize and the newly formed hadronic system freezes out. This sudden change is described with the help of the Landau matching conditions followed by the simulations done with THERMINATOR. The proposed scenario reproduces well the transverse-momentum spectra, the elliptic flo…
We obtain a detailed description of all available hadron multiplicity yields in central Pb--Pb collisions at LHC measured in the rapidity interval $|y|<0.5$. We find that the hadronization of the fireball at LHC occurs at nearly identical intensive physical bulk conditions for all centralities similar to those seen already at RHIC.
We discuss the recent claim that hadron multiplicities measured at RHIC energies are directly described in terms of gluon degrees of freedom fixed from the initial conditions of central heavy ion collisions. The argument is based on the parton saturation scenario expected to be valid at high parton densities and on the assumption of conserved gluon number. Alternatively we conjecture that "bottom-up" equilibration before hadronization modifies this picture, due to nonconservation of the number of gluons.
We consider the evolution of a parton system which is formed in the central region just after a relativistic heavy ion collision. The parton consist of mostly gluons, minijets, which are produced by elastic scattering between constituent partons of the colliding nuclei. We assume the system can be described by a semi-classical Boltzmann transport equation, which we solve by means of the test particle Monte-Carlo method including retardation. The partons proliferate via secondary radiative $gg \to ggg$ processes until the thermalization is reached for some assumptions. The extended system is th…
We argue that measurements of identified-particle elliptic flow in a wide energy range could shed light on the possible phase change in high-energy heavy ion collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). When the hadronization process is dominated by quark coalescence, the number-of-constituent-quark (NCQ) scaling for the identified-particle elliptic flow can serve as a probe for studying the strong interacting partonic matter. In the upcoming RHIC low-energy runs, the NCQ scaling behavior may be broken because of the change of the effective degrees of freedom of the hot dense …
A transport model is developed to describe hadron emission from a strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma formed in relativistic heavy ion collisions. The quark-gluon plasma is controlled by ideal hydrodynamics, and the hadron motion is characterized by a transport equation with loss and gain terms. The two sets of equations are coupled to each other, and the hadronization hypersurface is determined by both the hydrodynamic evolution and the hadron emission. The model is applied to calculate the transverse momentum distributions of mesons and baryons, and most of the results agree well with the ex…
We show that hadron production in relativistic heavy ion collisions at transverse momenta larger than 2 GeV/c can be explained by the competition of two different hadronization mechanisms. Above 5 GeV/c hadron production can be described by fragmentation of partons that are created perturbatively. Below 5 GeV/c recombination of partons from the dense and hot fireball dominates. This can explain some of the surprising features of RHIC data like the constant baryon-to-meson ratio of about one and the small nuclear suppression for baryons between 2 to 4 GeV/c.
We study the microscopic dynamics of quarks and gluons in relativistic heavy ion collisions in the framework of the Parton Cascade Model. We use lowest order perturbative QCD cross sections with fixed lower momentum cutoff p_0. We calculate the time-evolution of the Debye-screening mass for Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s)=200 GeV per nucleon pair. The screening mass is used to determine a lower limit for the allowed range of p_0. We also determine the energy density reached through hard and semi-hard processes at RHIC, obtain a lower bound for the rapidity density of charged hadrons produced by se…
Thermalization and collective flow of charm (c) and bottom (b) quarks in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions are evaluated based on elastic parton rescattering in an expanding quark-gluon plasma (QGP). We show that resonant interactions in a strongly interacting QGP (sQGP), as well as the effects of parton coalescence, can play an essential role in the interpretation of recent data from the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC), and thus illuminate the nature of the sQGP and its hadronization. Our main assumption, motivated by recent findings in lattice computations of Quantum Chromodynam…
Recent developments in our description of RHIC and related heavy-ion phenomena in terms of hidden local symmetry theories are reviewed with a focus on the novel nearly massless states in the vicinity of -- both below and above -- the chiral restoration temperature T_c. We present complementary and intuitive ways to understand both Harada-Yamawaki's vector manifestation structure and Brown-Rho scaling -- which are closely related -- in terms of "melting" of soft glues observed in lattice calculations and join the massless modes that arise in the vector manifestation (in the chiral limit) just b…
We apply a quark combination model to study yield densities and transverse momentum ($p_{T}$) spectra of strange (anti-)hadrons at mid-rapidity in central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$ 7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, 39 and 200 GeV. We show that experimental data for $p_{T}$ spectra of (anti-)hadrons in these collisions can be systematically described by the equal velocity combination of constituent quarks and antiquarks at hadronization. We obtain $p_{T}$ spectra of quarks and antiquarks at hadronization and study their collision energy dependence. We also reproduce the yield densities of hadrons…
The dynamics of partons, hadrons and strings in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions is analyzed within the novel Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach, which is based on a dynamical quasiparticle model for partons (DQPM) matched to reproduce recent lattice-QCD results -- including the partonic equation of state -- in thermodynamic equilibrium. The transition from partonic to hadronic degrees of freedom is described by covariant transition rates for the fusion of quark-antiquark pairs or three quarks (antiquarks), respectively, obeying flavor current-conservation, color ne…
We evaluate strangeness produced in Au--Au interactions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=200$ GeV, as function of reaction participant number $A$, and obtain the relative strange quark content at hadronization. Strange baryon and antibaryon rapidity density yields are studied, relative to, and as function of, participant number, and produced hadron yields.
